Should Chris Moyles be taught a lesson?

Would you buy a used car from the disc jockey Chris Moyles? I’m fairly gullible but even I’d have second thoughts if the gobby lardmountain approached me with a 2004 Nissan Micra, one careful owner mate, sound as a pound. This is what Moyles told the Inland Revenue he did for a living so that he could save one million quid in tax. What he was actually doing was presenting various unspeakably awful radio programmes for obscene amounts of money. He has been told by a tribunal – which his legal team tried to have held in camera, so as to protect the oaf’s foundering career – to pay the money back.

But doesn’t this kind of ‘mistake’, as Moyles calls it, merit a stiffer lesson? Let’s accept, as we must, that Moyles believed that the scheme was legal. That doesn’t change the fact he was trying to dodge tax in a way that is the very definition of shiftiness.

It speaks volumes for the integrity of BBC staff that they have to pretend to be second-hand car dealers!

RichardOakes

I’m sorry, but using this to attack the BBC is just pathetic.

David Booth.

The BBC enabled Mr Moyles to reduce his tax bill in the way he did. The fact that the tax man has slapped him down over this and Mr Moyles is now witterings on about mistakes and bad advice tells us all we need to know about the man.
Every pound Mr Moyles avoided in his shabby scheme has to be replaced by the rest of us taxpayers and I for one am fed up with yet another BBC employee/contractor trying it on
at the expense of the public.

David davis

If he “avoided” tax by arranging his declared and checkable affairs suitably, then he’s not liable: even if he also sold used cars. But if he “evaded” tax by pretending to sell used cars when he didn’t and was a poorly-skilled DJ instead, then that’s “evasion”.

http://wrinkledweasel-resurgam.blogspot.co.uk/ wrinkledweasel

Well, look on the bright side. At least he is not another BBC fondler.

Baron

That’s a good one, wrinkledweasel, if you sure of it.

Terry101

Richard Branson is the name that should be focussed on, someone like Moyles is nothing in comparison. With the residency/domicile manoeuvring going on will Branson pay any capital gains tax in the UK on the sale of his empire, & will his heirs pay a single penny in IHT? Britain’s favourite businessman does not seem to favour paying British tax on his lifetime’s wealth accumulation.

The PrangWizard of England

We see this sort of things in all sorts of guises. For those like him, with friends, and celebrity, and of course connections to the BBC, and organisation of doubtful moral standing, it’s just ‘say sorry’ and carry on as if nothing has happened. With one or two honourable exceptions and the freedom, for now, of the internet, the media are encouraging us to take this ultra-liberal view of crime and behaviour. They also teach us that it is wrong to be ‘judgmental’. The police are no use, they were politicized long ago and have not acted impartially for decades. They intimidate the innocent ordinary person because he has no influence. They are in bed with the Elite.

England needs a new lead. We must first get rid of the British and Unionist elites in charge of the State apparatus which runs our lives. It does not represent the English. We must end the Union and get the British off our English backs. Only with an independent and free England can the people prosper morally and economically again.

http://biasedbbc.proboards.com/index.cgi Teddy Bear

The individual aspects of this story shows just how corrupt is the mindset exhibited by many within the BBC, it really confirms my estimation of their true hypocritical insidious agenda visible on so many levels.

Moyles is just the microcosm of the macrocosm.
Why any presenter should be paid £700,000 a year, especially out of public funding, is already pointing to something wrong.
Instead of feeling a moral and ethical responsibility to repay some of those huge earnings back to the public, as demanded by taxes, especially when the corporation loves to present the problems faced by the poor who would therefore benefit by having more money in the coffers to assist them, their greed leads them to minimise any payback. Not to mention while hypocritically continuing to demonise banker bonuses and big businesses who similarly avoid paying taxes. But let’s bear in mind that big businesses provide employment for many other people which improves the economy and lifestyle we are able to enjoy in society.

From the likes of Moyles we get nothing.

Then after being exposed for the cheats they are, they then further insult the intelligence of the public by pretending that they thought it was all legal and above board.
You claim to have a business which you don’t in order to make it appear as if you are earning far less than you are. I believe most people would recognise this as fraud – pure and simple.

The very same dynamics we see daily at the BBC in one form or other.

startledcod

You talk about repaying money as if his, admittedly, very large pay cheque was somehow a loan. There are two issues here the first is how much the BBC agreed to pay him out of the TV tax the second, completely separate, issue is whether he legally avoided paying any more tax than he was obliged to do. When he banks the pay cheque it is his money NOT the State’s or tax payers’. Nobody pays more tax than they are legally obliged to do.

http://biasedbbc.proboards.com/index.cgi Teddy Bear

Why am I not surprised that somebody sticking up for the BBC has to show a lack of understanding concerning ethics and morals?

I’ll try to illuminate.
A moral person who received so much money out of the public purse, and aware the society was going through tough times, particularly when that moral person’s company were highlighting these hardships on a consistent basis, would be happy to see the determined amount of taxes to benefit society being returned.
Get it?
Society benefits the individual – the individual benefits society in return. This is called harmony and justice – a good world.
This piece of excrement thought just his being was enough repayment and lied and cheated to avoid returning anything of what he had received.

Believe it or not, I’m quite happy that somebody like you doesn’t understand it for themselves, shows the mindset still around that supports the BBC.

startledcod

I cannot work out whether you are stupid, pretending to be stupid or being ironic. I do not support the BBC and would happily see it broken up.

However, your comment about a ‘person who received so much money out of the public purse’ seems to suggest that Moyles is a recipient of benefits that are decided at, presumably, politician’s discretion. He was paid, admittedly a very large sum, for doing his job by a corporation.

Moyles was happy to pay the ‘determined amount’ of tax being paid what he attempted to do was to mitigate what that ‘determined amount’ should be. He is entitled to do so provided he doesn’t break the law. Get it?

There is nothing moral about high tax rates.

Your statement ‘Society benefits the individual – the individual benefits society in return. This is called harmony and justice – a good world.’ is utter, utter bilge and really quite meaningless. You go on ‘This piece of excrement thought just his being was enough repayment and lied and cheated to avoid returning anything of what he had received.’ which makes it as clear as possible that you really don’t understand what getting paid is all about. Chris Moyles was not ‘returning’ anything any more than a Council employee is returning something when his tax is collected via PAYE.

http://biasedbbc.proboards.com/index.cgi Teddy Bear

I’m really not worried what you are capable of ‘working out’ about me. I’m content knowing that those who can and do will see just how ridiculous your skewed justification for Moyles is, and I’m quite clear about your mentality.

People in this country can go to jail for not paying a tax that goes toward supporting the likes of Moyle. But idiots like you fail to see a problem when the likes of Moyle lies and cheats to avoid paying tax that should be going back to the same people who were forced to pay him.

As for your assessment that there is nothing moral about high taxes, so long as you live in a democratic society where the government of the day has determined what is the fair rate of tax, with higher earners paying more because they can better afford it, that’s how it is.

Moyles is a cheat and a liar and I think justice would be served by him having to serve a sentence at least twice as long as those who avoid paying TVL.

The fact that you don’t get it doesn’t bother me. I’m not responsible for your twisted mentality.

Noa

Rod.
Tax and avoiding it is an issue close to all our hearts. There but for the grace of God etc
Let us hope we never see you having to providing details of how you attempted to mitigate the barbarous incursions of the fiends from HMRC on the Liddle estates and coffers.

GraveDave

Radio is our sound salvation. Radio is cleaning up the nation. Why do we even need these professional blatherers.

BarkingAtTreehuggers

Shiftiness — I welcome this terminology, we ought to legislate that next, you know, think big, employ loads of soliciting folk to obscure the fact that ‘shiftiness’ is quite evidently a criminal offence.

Fergus Pickering

I think he should go to prison..

startledcod

For what?

Fergus Pickering

We can surely think of something.

startledcod

Being rich and paying lots of tax, how many years for that?

Fergus Pickering

Paying lots of tax is fine. Paying bugger all tax is prison.

Baron

Fergus, here you’re at your best except you haven’t yet converted this take of yours on the guy into verse. Why don’t you.

Fergus Pickering

I might, my dear Baron, but not here, not now.

Baron

Quite, wait until afflatus strikes.

anyfool

Did the BBC help him in this, it has form in these matters, will Paxo interview him, with his knowledge of this sort of thing, it could be interesting.

Baron

It pains Baron to say it because he likes the man as much as he likes a kick in the ar$e, but the barbarian must remind you once more of the ruling by a judge from Britain’s ‘barbaric’ past when judiciary was an independent branch of government rather than a club of overpaid puppets with the politicians pulling the strings: No man is required to arrange his affairs so as to pay the largest possible amount of tax.

Chris looks like a second hand car salesman, talks and behaves like one. perhaps, he is one.

CharlietheChump

He does look the part.

Agrippina

Yes he wanted to avoid tax, and NT (no tax) the company he went to for advice told him that that scheme was a good one. He is just like Gary Barlow and Carr who were both in similar schemes to avoid tax, and duplicitious dave commented on Carr’s avoidance but didn’t say anything about gary who has donated to the tories.

How is gidiot not in the top rate of tax, he is on a 3fig salary, owns a £3million plus house in Notting Hill, unless he is not part of a elaborate avoidance scheme!

There would be a long queue for your shifty people to be … fill in whatever should be done to them.

La Fold

It was more the fact that Carr was up on the telly making jokes about other peoples tax avoidance and even having a go at some bank which turned who he banked with. Not only doubly hypocritical but about as funny as contracting the dread gum disease, gingivitis.

Agrippina

I don’t care where the avoiders come from left or right they are loathsome, as they patently earn enough to pay taxes, but choose not to do so, & prefer to pay accountants to avoid.

Comics, DJ’s, popstars overpaid BBC bods loathsome the lot of them, esp as I have to pay for a licence so it is my money paying that oaf’s salary. As to the others, at least I do not buy their wares so I am less annoyed but think little of them too.

La Fold

I was pointing out that the reason CArr was pointed out was for his hypocrisy. And tax avoiders are not loathsome. Tax is a necessary evil not a moral obligation. I have avoided tax myself beingas self employed and having an ISA etc.
As for the TV licence, if you dont want to pay it, do what I do and dont.

startledcod

Well said.

startledcod

Agippina, please can you be clear that you have never paid a builder cash so that he needn’t declare the income or paid cash for anything to avoid VAT or any other similar scheme because, if you can’t, then you are a tax avoider. It is fair to surmise that you don’t want to pay tax any more that Chris Moyles; this is evidenced by your resentment at paying the TV tax (licence) that pays his salary. You seem to assume that because he is paid more than you are his reluctance to pay tax is morally inferior to yours. Where is the morality in the 50% who receive more in benefits than they pay in tax (does this include you?) expecting others to pay a larger and larger proportion of their income to pay for others. Why isn’t it acceptable for the most highly paid to resent those that they are paying for through, as they see it, an inequitable tax system. The top 1% of tax payers pay around 30% of tax, house is that possibly moral?

Are you an avoider? Are you too ‘loathsome’?

Fergus Pickering

Yes. Quite moral. The world is inequitable. The rich are generally undeserving.

startledcod

Fail. Your comment that ‘The rich are generally undeserving’ is a classic way to justify state sponsored larceny, do you distinguish between the poor, I would hazard not because the differentiation is whether they are justified in receiving other people’s money visa the intermediary of the state. The rich are neither deserving or undeserving they are just richer and they already make a disproportionate contribution for which they are neither thanked or appreciated.

Fergus Pickering

You do not have to be thanked for paying what you owe, or indeed appreciated. Few rich men have clean hands. Some, but few. You know this. I know this. Everybody knows this.The love of money is the root etc etc..

startledcod

Fergus you seem to believe that it is somehow acceptable to demand (with state enforced menaces) that some people pay a disproportionately larger share of their income than others (remember 50% are not net contributors at all) and that they shouldn’t be tanksed for that.

I assume that if a wealthy friend were to take you out for dinner you would thank them, you wouldn’t just say ‘you’re rich and can afford it therefore you should pay’. The very, very wealthy who pay a huge share of tax choose to pay their tax here, I think they should be thanked. I would also remind you that almost 60% of tax is paid by the top 10% of tax payers and that includes tube drivers.

The meaning/concept of fairness has been distorted to mean the rich paying for the Government supplied services for the poor, what fairness actually means is that everyone should pay the same rate.

Fergus Pickering

Good Heavens what bollocks. You are incorrigible.

startledcod

Not bollocks, I think it much more the case that your concept of what constitutes fair has been skewed to mean it is acceptable to relieve people of a ridiculously large proportion of their money. It may be many things, not all of them bad, but one thing it isn’t is fair.

Fergus Pickering

Life is unfair. No harm in evening it up a bit.

James Strong

There is a lot to be said about the distortion of the concept of ‘fairness’.
I agree that fairness means that everyone should pay the same rate.
I also think that fairness entails the inevitable and necessary result of talented, industrious people getting high rewards.

startledcod

It was the introduction of ‘progressive’ tax (the rich paying a higher rate than the less well off) that started on the slippery slope of the moral justification for state-sponsored removal of wealth from the richer. With flat tax everyone wants the same thing, a lower rate, the introduction of ‘progressive’ tax, where more and more people expect those wealthier than themselves to pay for their state supplied services. We have now reached the unsustainable situation where 50% are net recipients, 1% pay almost 30% and the top 10%, who pay around 60% of the tax, include tube train drivers.

What ever way one spins that situation it is quite clearly not fair in the traditional meaning of the word. More worryingly, the most mobile money in the country is the top 0.1% of tax payers, probably representing almost 15% of the tax take, and if they think the system is unfair they will take their money away.

Marie Louise Noonan

‘I also think that fairness entails the inevitable and necessary result of talented, industrious people getting high rewards.’

Like small business owners?

(who get relentlessly pursued to the ends of the earth and beyond for the taxes they are said to owe and I don’t see many people defending them either.)

Fergus Pickering

Or idle, incompetent people getting high rewards. Certain bankers spring to mind.

La Fold

Fergus you dont half talk some amount of cobblers.

Fergus Pickering

Are you rich, fellow, or just an apologist for the bastards?

La Fold

Im neither you absolute toby. I work in a heavy industrial plant with a load of working class lads you’d cross the road to avoid so dont try and tell me youre a thorny handed son of toil
Now prove to me the rich are generally undeserving? Go on you mug. Or is it just something you say to sound morally superior hence your loaded question?
Away and go write some more limp wristed navel gazing poerty or translate some rude bits of latin cause you’re boring me.

Fergus Pickering

Horny-handed is the phrase, old son. How can you prove an opinion? That is what I think.. Your assumption that I am homosexual is untrue, but I don’t mind.I think your sort of people imagine anyone cultured must be homosexual.

Kitty MLB

I also made that assumption about Fergus
when first arriving here, and was very dispirited to find out otherwise because now I feel I must not be as open or as unusual.
I am off, away from that scholarly intellect of yours,
to find a fellow ignoramus or two and we shall speak
of Chaucer and whatever.

Kitty MLB

I find chaps quite discombobulating when they
feel intellectually intimidated or socially inferior ( for whatever reason)
A rather reasonable chap turns into a Neanderthal,
becomes somewhat insulting about well educated people
who do not have a ‘ real manly’ job and you start ratting on
about manual work because brainwork doesn’t matter.

Kitty MLB

Oh, I forgot a lot of people like poetry from all walks of life.
I can produce some ‘ Latin bits’ if you like-
and even translate them.

Ron Todd

I have paid people cash. What they do with that cash is their responsibility. I don’t have the resources to check if they declared it to the tax man..

startledcod

He is on a 3 figure salary and so unless it exceeds £150k he will not be liable to pay the top rate of tax. The value of his house is irrelevant to the rate of tax he pays, what a chippy moron you are.

matt shaw

a truly disgusting individual. a stoning would be too good for him.

http://wrinkledweasel-resurgam.blogspot.co.uk/ wrinkledweasel

I think you will find that he has been stoned for some time.

James Strong

If he avoided tax legally then every credit to him.
If he committed a crime then, on conviction, punish him.
But how about moving towards a much simpler tax code. Get rid of loopholes, concessions, allowances.
Just say ’10% of your income goes in tax’.
Lots good to be said about this. The vast majority of civil servants in HMRC could lose their jobs and go and do something worthwhile, and the same for lawyers and sccountants.

startledcod

Spot on James, you’re pressing the right buttons. If he has broken the law punish him if he hasn’t leave him alone, with a flat tax rate everyone wants the same thing, a lower rate; the introduction of, so called, progressive tax means that most want someone with more money to pay.

Ron Todd

He was pretending to be a used car salesman when he wasn’t. He was lying to save tax. If he can lie to save tax without breaking the law then the law is badly drafted.

Daniel Maris

Was he posing as a used car salesman or as a DJ with a love of music and a vibrant personality.

It doesn’t matter what Chris Moyles thought, what matters is if he broke the law. I’d be astounded if the law was so poorly drafted so as to allow him to claim to be a used car salesman. So given that we’re speculating, I’d say it’s fraud and he’s in trouble.

ADW

The problem is that HMRC are always outgunned by large accountancy firms and their clients when it comes to resources. There must be countless schemes along the same lines, but unless and until HMRC investigates and, if necessary, takes the matter to the tribunals (and potentially on appeal all the way to Europe and back), the shysters will get away with it.

Which is not to deny that the government wastes most of what it gets and that the over-complex tax system has to take some of the blame for allowing these schemes in the first place.

startledcod

Flat tax, everyone pays a certain percentage of all income over the tax free threshold, no allowances no deductions. What’s not to like.

Jez

Are we allowed to question the actions of a (former) BBC employee?

I feel a little uncomfortable.

Noa

it’s never worried you in giving Rod a hard time!

Jez

I’m sure this may have been reciprocated.

….. saying that, has anyone heard of Willhem lately?

Noa

Yes, Rod likes to return our shafts of wit, with interest if possible, bless ‘im!
As to Wilhelm, no, like the now banned Austin Barry he’s much missed.

Barakzai

‘. . . the now banned Austin Barry . . . ‘

Hmmm, I didn’t know that. AB was the site’s sanest commentator.

Noa

Certainly he was the funniest, and sorely missed.

Sue Ward

Austin Barry has been banned? You’ve got to be kidding?!

ButcombeMan

Check your privileges.

Unless you have attempted tax fiddling you cannot comment

GUBU

Mr Moyles was clearly driven (pun intended) to unsuccessfully impersonate a used car salesman by his greed.

There are those of us who think that his impersonation of a disc jockey was equally unconvincing.

startledcod

I disagree, I think he was driven by a desire to legally keep as much of HIS money as he could. Do you pay more tax than you legally have to, are you greedy?

Treebrain

“But doesn’t this kind of ‘mistake’, as Moyles calls it, merit a stiffer lesson? Let’s accept, as we must, that Moyles believed that the scheme was legal. That doesn’t change the fact he was trying to dodge tax in a way that is the very definition of shiftiness.”

Absolutely and so punish him to set an example to all the others!

gerontius

I’m not a taxman, but surely this scheme is only profitable if you had not in fact incurred the trading fees/costs that you are claiming against tax. Would this not consitute fraud?
Nothing against the man as I have never knowingly heard his show.

Daniel Maris

Well I guess this is where you split yourself into several companies?

gerontius

Do you have a cunning plan?

DougS

I’d like to think that HM Treasury will do something useful with the money (if he pays it back), but somehow I doubt it.

They’ll probably blow it on subsidies for a couple of useless wind turbines like the ones on Reggie Sheffield’s land, so that a rich landowner can get a bit richer at the expense of the rest of us.

I would rather he gave it to some armed forces charities – better than letting the government waste it!

startledcod

What do you mean ‘if he pays it back’, it’s HIS money?

DougS

I take your point ‘cod, but I’m quoting from Rod’s piece above, viz:

“….He has been told by a tribunal……….. to pay the
money back”

startledcod

‘cepted.

Bluesman_1

If he had avoided tax (legal) then he would not have to pay it back. If he evaded tax (not legal) then he should be subjected to due legal process as an accused thief. But then again, the thief Laws got away with it and I hear that the thief Blears may be ennobled (as if that were remotely possible in any but a corrupted sense).

Frank

We could break butterflies on the wheel (a one year prison term would probably suffice for Moyles), but lets focus on Amazon, Google, etc, as the rewards are potentially much larger.

Wessex Man

No let’s throw it at him, them and no doubt the rest of the BBC’s ‘artistes’ who given the chance would bore us rigid, I bet they’re all at it!

Frank

OK, I accept your powerful arguments! Lets name, shame and jail all of them. Then can we get our tax man to get off his butt and tax Google and Aamazon?

Ron Todd

Amazon and Google are international businesses they could move out of this country completely. I suspect that Mr Moyles would not find many countries where he would be paid silly money to play records and talk ( insert your own censor friendly word) for a few hours a week.

Cyril Sneer

It was no mistake, he deliberately tried to avoid paying what he owes in tax. Throw the book at him.

startledcod

If it was legal then he is arranging his affairs to reduce the amount of tax he owed, if not then he is evading tax. He is only legally obliged to pay what he owes and if his odd scheme is legal then he doesn’t owe it. Why would anyone want to pay more tax than they can legally owing.